showdown
by sugar free vanilla
Summary: 'Words evade her, and she is left gaping in his corridor, unable to find the right syllables to twist her tongue around. So she stares up, hopes he can read her desperation in the whorls of her irises and that he'll give her the chance to gather her thoughts and give voice to what she needs to say to him.' AU-ish oneshot, set a little after Headhunters.


**Set after ****Headhunters but before Undead Again - part of a thing that I wrote for sanumarox123. Thanks for everything, Bogi.**

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><p>Kate Beckett raises her fist, hesitating for a bare fragment of time before letting her knuckles come into contact with the smooth wood. The sharp rap ricochets from the door, echoes deafeningly around the empty hallway and pounds in her ears, the rhythm syncopated with the crash of her heart against her ribs. In all honesty, she's not quite sure what she's doing here, isn't certain of what she wants to say, if anything. What she's achingly sure of is the tightness in her sternum every time he casts a cold unseeing gaze on her; the sharp tug of her gut when he walks into the precinct with one cup of coffee in his hand; the bile that rises in her throat each occasion that she's suggested they spend time together outside work and found herself on the receiving end of his halfhearted excuses; the crushing panic that consumes her with the realisation that he's pulling away.<p>

As the door swings open, the crescendo in her chest dies, slows to long, pounding throbs that reverberate through her blood and leave her breathless.

"Detective Beckett," he sounds surprised, but there's no joy to the tone. "What are you doing here?"

Words evade her, and she is left gaping in his corridor, unable to find the right syllables to twist her tongue around. So she stares up, hopes he can read her desperation in the whorls of her irises and that he'll give her the chance to gather her thoughts and give voice to what she needs to say to him.

Castle's hard gaze falters, softens, shoulders sagging from their rigid posture as he opens his front door fully. "Do you want to come in?" Something like self-loathing flickers across his face, dim candlelight over his features, all dark shadows and gloomy highlights.

"Please," she manages, the word scratching unsteadily against her throat and lurching into the air with a hoarse wheeze, the breath gone from her lungs all of a sudden.

He ushers her in with a stiff wave of his arm, closes the door behind them with a quiet click. Doesn't offer to take her coat, doesn't move further into his loft; just leans against his door, back of his head connecting with the surface with a solid smack. He doesn't even wince, features set in a stoic mask of indifference. His eyes are closed and she wishes he'd open them, the unfounded hope that she'd be able to glean something from them despite her utter failure at for the last few weeks rearing it's naive head. The man has an excellent poker face, she laments.

The air is charged between them - not with their usual chemistry, though that's ever present too, a mournful mist weighing on the atmosphere like a sheet lain over someone recently deceased. It screams of an ending, of a goodbye, and every inch of Kate's mind shrieks back in fervent protest. This can't be the finish, not when they haven't even begun.

"I called you," breaking the silence, Kate twists her father's watch on her wrist, attempts to steel herself. "A few times, actually. You didn't pick up?" It's a statement, but she phrases it as a question - she needs a reason, wants a _why. _

"Oh, sorry. Must have left my phone in the office. Not seen it in a few hours." As if the lie weren't hopeless enough already, as if he were ever able to leave his cell alone for more than minutes at a time, the damn thing chimes from his pocket, the screen lighting up and casting its glow through blue denim. Castle's lips turn down as he's caught in his falsehood, his thumb and forefinger lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose. A long sigh shudders to life and his entire frame slumps, the strength sapped from it. "Look, maybe you should go…"

Alarm bubbles up instantly, a fizzing surge through her veins. She hasn't said her piece yet, hasn't even worked out quite what her piece _is_ but Kate has a terrible feeling that if she leaves now, she'll never set foot in this place again. That she'll never see the man who lives here again either.

The fear gives her strength.

"No. Not until you explain everything. The distance and the pulling away and the Jacinda and the _Slaughter. _You're my _partner, _Castle. I need to know why it seems like you don't want to be that anymore." _Why you don't want me anymore._

There's a long silence that stretches between them, cracked and destroyed by the harsh, bitter laugh that barks seemingly involuntarily from Castle, unable to be held back any longer. "What's a partnership without trust?"

It knocks the wind out of her, leaves her hurt and sends her spiralling. She trusts him with her _life _and he's telling her he doesn't have faith in her. It's a three-sixty turn from how he'd used to depend on her, the way he'd follow her into danger, ask her advice. Rely on her. What has she done to destroy that?

"You don't - why, Castle? What's changed?" Despite her best intentions, her voice wavers pleadingly. It's a far cry from the steely determination for answers she'd been trying for.

His face is dark, stormy, all the tension that's been broiling between them since the end of the bombing case making itself known in the set of his jaw, the navy ink of angry eyes. "Nothing's _changed _- just I became privy to what's been there the whole time. You lied, Beckett. You heard me in the cemetery. And you told me you didn't remember, then spilled the truth to a petty criminal!"

Atlas drops his burden and the world comes crashing down on Kate's shoulders, ripping her apart with guilt and sorrow and sudden cognizance. Her chest burns and she feels sick, reaches out for him only to have him flinch away. Tugging her hands back, she wrings them together, tries to stave away the urge that insists she hold him, the itch in her blood that nags his name.

"Castle, Rick - I," she begins, only to be cut off.

"I get it, I understand you don't feel the same, that's not your fault. But you robbed me of my dignity, Beckett-" he's still talking, but she's caught on the start of his monologue…

He thinks she doesn't feel the same.

How can he think she doesn't feel the same?

She thought she'd understood his anger, the lie she kept for so long coupled with her three month disappearance after the shooting, but now she understands his hurt. She's been forced to face the prospect that he'd moved on from her, the idea a continuous kick in the teeth, the pain no less sharp, no less bruising as weeks passed.

"Are you even listening?"

She kisses him.

Her quad muscles pulling with her lunge across the sparse feet that separate them, her trembling hands cradling his stubble-rough cheeks, the white-noise rush of blood in her head and the frantic pace of her heart sending shockwaves through her body- she's hyper aware of everything in the moment where her lips connect with his. Finally, finally, so long after that glorious kiss-ruse in that alley way. Sparks fly at the press of his mouth, ignite in her veins as he moves with her, hands hovering above her waist as she deepens the kiss, parts her mouth and opens for him.

She groans when his grip finds her forearms, tugs them down as he pulls away from her, gasping. "I don't understand - _Beckett_, Kate...I can't, I can't-"

"I love you," she blurts. It's inelegant, the three little words tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be voiced. They tangle, blur together in her breathlessness and so she says them again, again, again…

It's he who kisses her this time, captures her lips and steals her confession from them, sweeps her hair from her face with careful fingers, smooths his thumb along her cheekbone. It's short, sweet, over quickly. His forehead dips to meet hers, noses sliding against each other as their breath mingles.

"You mean it?" His need for reassurance threatens to shatter her bruised heart, even now as the muscle swells with joy.

"More than anything," she swears, presses her lips to his jawline and murmurs the promise there too. Finds his hands with her own and knots their knuckles as she tugs him close so that their bodies align. In her heels, her hips cradle his pelvis and she rocks into him, releasing an exhale closer to a moan. "Let me show you," Kate whispers, her mouth tracing his cheek now, lavishing love onto the flushed skin, scraping over the rough stubble. "Please. Let me show you."

"Kate," Castle groans, panting slightly as she focuses her attention on his neck. "I have so many questions - _why?"_

"Sh, shhh," she soothes, returns to his mouth as she threads her fingers through his hair. "I'm in this, Castle, I promise. We have time, all the time in the world. Let's just give ourselves this - if you want, I mean," she tugs away, hastily backtracking as she panics at the thought that he doesn't want her that way, one that's never even occurred to her before; not with all the innuendo and tension and teasing and heated looks.

He laughs then, deep and rich and throaty. It's a delicious sound, and happy - the first time he's sounded truly so since he'd opened the door (in weeks, in fact) - and she wants to record it, listen to it on repeat for the rest of her life, lest she forget the timbre of it for even a second. "Oh, I want this… And if you're in this, if you're really in this-"

"I am, I-"

He silences her with the hard press of his mouth against hers, more confident this time as he blazes a trail from her lips to the hollow of her throat, nips at the exposed skin until she's gasping his name into the still air of his living room and-

"Maybe we should take this to the - _oh_ - bedroom, Castle," she suggests, his teeth scraping over a particularly sensitive spot.

Meeting her gaze, his eyes implore her, beg for honesty. "Beckett, I need to know you're sure, I need to know that-"

He stops talking when she guides his hand under the waistband of her slacks, shows him just how much she wants this. Lets him feel the slickness that soaks her underwear and watches those earnest baby blues haze with lust. "Kate," he chokes out, her name scripture by the reverence with which he speaks it.

"Come on, Castle." She takes his hand, leads him through his office and enters his bedroom for the first time.

In the not-too distant future, they'll be calling it theirs.

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><p><strong>I'm sure this has been done a million times, but oh well. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday the other day, and that you all have a great new year.<strong>

**Apologies for any mistakes. It's 4.56am and I might die soon from fatigue, so if you could forgive any typos that'd be wonderful.**

**tumblr: castleholic**

**twitter: _sfv**


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